


Terminal Velocity: Duo and the Spark

by duointherain



Category: Doctor Who, Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2019-07-03 06:06:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15812976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duointherain/pseuds/duointherain
Summary: It's post-war, Duo is mad crushing on Heero. Heero can't be bothered. Duo is sent off on an undercover mission, which he succeeds at or he gets fired from Preventers.





	1. Chapter 1

Terminal Velocity: Duo and the Spark 1/?   
by Max  
Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing  
Note: The Terminal Velocity Heero and Duo have been on my mind, so this is them, even though it’s years earlier. 

“Okay.” Une said, a smile on lifting her lips that was part Duo-mimicry and part serial killer with the blade already deep between the victim’s ribs. “I’m going to take you off suspension, as long as you accept the next mission without complaint and you complete it successfully, without undue violence or property damage.”

“Great! Awesome! So me and Heero gonna get this thing done,” Duo said, his grin this bright second cousin of the sun, as he chewed up her blade and spit the tip back at her.

“You,” Une said, pointing a well-manicured finger at him, “Are going undercover.”

“With Heero as my backup, right?”

“No. Heero has a different assignment.”

Eating blades for breakfast is very fortifying. Duo’s eyes went to a stormy dark twilight color. “What’chu mean?”

“Are you complaining,” Une asked, her supply of blades never short.

“Nope,” Duo said, lips squishing up, nose a raisin. 

“Wonderful! I’m loaning you to Seattle Narcotics. You’ll be undercover at a Walmart for six months. Don’t get fired. If you get fired, you fail, and I’ll have to terminate you from the Preventer’s program. Also, you’ll be wearing a yellow badge, as you’re still a minor.”

For a couple seconds, the only sound was Duo trying to breathe through a nose that had twisted up so much as to become an origami raisin. 

“Okay. Drug dealers. I can do drug dealers.” 

“You’re there as an inside informant, only. No weapons, no explosives, no acid, not fists, not violence. No one there knows who you really are. Wufei will be your backup.” 

Duo’s head felt like it was going to just float away, like one of those lanterns for the dead, or something. He’d been to a Walmart, several times during the war. Wartime shopping entailed heavy stealth and no money though. Those was good times. Yup. “Wufei’s great.”

“Wonderful,” Une said, Duo’s discharge papers already drawn up, just not dated yet. “Have a good time!” 

<><><>

 

Two weeks later

Duo in his blue vest and running on a breakfast of coffee with a side of coffee and painkillers - like how was it even legal to threaten to fire someone if they sat down? Was that legal? Made the Sweepers look positively luxurious. No beer, no sitting, be nice - fuck MAH life - no shooting anyone, no snark, no buying homeless folk phone chargers that the were clearly shit at stealing.

“Yes, I’d be happy to help,” Duo said as the woman at the photo kiosk stared at the screen for another thirty seconds before turning to him. 

She took another couple seconds to hold her breath, her eyes sliding up and down him, before she sniffed, sighed, and dealt with her approaching dissatisfaction. “How big is a 4x6?”

Duo blinked, keeping his face relaxed, calm. “It is four inches by six inches.” 

“Yes, I know that,” she said, giving him another sigh like he was an idiot who couldn’t speak English properly. Probably from one of the colonies. She touched a fingertip to the inside curve of her manicured eyebrow, “But how big is it?”

Duo stared, one eye drawing down into a squint, “Uh, it’s four inches, by six inches, so like one side is four inches long and the other side is six inches long.” 

Her eyes rolled up to look up at the industrial gray of the ceiling. “I just can’t visualize it. Don’t you have some... display that shows me how big it is.” 

Jaw slowly sinking, Duo focused on not letting his lips twist up, don’t show any emotion, no emotion, and don’t say it’s four inches by six inches again, no emotion. Heartburn. Yup, that’s heartburn. “Sure.” 

If one set the charges right, the entire building would go and then there’d be no drug dealers in there. Yup. If done right, there could be beautiful swirling columns of flame. Heero would appreciate the artistry of it. But. He wouldn’t appreciate it if he never heard about it, which is what would happen if Duo lost all his clearances and was kicked out of Preventers.... and then he might actually have to work at a Walmart. 

He fished another customer’s photo envelope out, pulled a 4x6 and showed the woman the back of it. “There. This is a 4x6.” 

“Well, why didn’t you do that in the first place?”

Beautiful columns of flame. “Sorry.”


	2. The White Printer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duo tells a lie.

Terminal Velocity: Duo and the Spark 2/?  
by Max

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing. 

Being either sixteen or seventeen, Duo felt that he was mature. Maturity had brought with it discomforts that he hadn’t had when he was younger. The night before sleep had been little more than a false shadow, evasive and frustrating. So he’d figured get to bed early, take one of those anti-anxiety pills that Dr. Sally and Heero thought would be good or him, get lots of sleep. A couple hours later, he took a couple sleeping pills. Then another hour in, another anxiety pill. Around four hours in, he took one more sleeping pill. A few minutes later he tried a warm shower. Then a while later, he tried another one. In the shower, with the warm water running down his back, he might have slept standing up a bit. With three hours left in his planned sleep schedule, his room mate turned on the blender for a few minutes. Laying there with the blankets up around his ears, violet eyes gleaming into the morning contaminated room, he found that contemplating murder wasn’t really helpful for going back to sleep. So then there was a glass of milk and Irish Cream. 

The end result was not enough sleep. Yesterday’s shirt really didn’t care one way or the other. He’d had two showers so he didn’t bother with a third, but remembered he hadn’t shaved when rolled the big Walmart door. The warm happiness of Duo’s morning had worn away by the time he got to the electronics counter. Like how many attendance points did you get for going home early? 

Fortunately the day moved right along, in a kind of time warp stupid kinda way, so that it was at once moving very fast and not moving at all at the same time. During a rush, he was ringing up a customer, answering questions about tv streaming devices, when the phone rang. 

The week before Loss Prevention had been unhappy that he didn’t answer the phone, so he answered the phone. “Thank you for calling Walmart Electronics, my name is Duo. How may I help you.” 

“I bought a white printer.” The woman said, her voice edged with brittle, but not the ‘please be kind to me’ kind, but more the ‘I’m going to cut you and like it kind’. 

“Okay,” Duo said, pointing the scanner at the next item for the customer in front of him.

“I need a black printer,” the woman said, as if that should be completely obvious to anyone breathing. 

“Okay,” Duo said as he hit card for the payment processing to start. 

“DO you have a black printer. It has to be HP. My computer is HP, so I need an HP printer.”

Duo mouthed ‘Have a nice day,’ to the customer who was taking their bag full of probably environmentally harmful products, “Well, actually, it’s okay to use any printer with any computer. An HP computer will work with pretty much any printer, but I think I do have a black HP printer. May I place you on hold while I check?”

“And the price. Get the price.”

“Of course,” Duo said, putting her on hold before running back to check on the printer. It was a whole twenty steps, round trip. “So we do have one. It’s $60.”

“Well, set it aside for me. I live by the mall. I will be there shortly.”

“I’m sure it will be here.” So, most people don’t buy a $60 printer when it’s sitting next to a stack of perfectly fine $19 printers. Most people don’t care that much what color the printer is. 

“Still. I want you to set it aside for me.” 

Duo, who was then ringing up another customer, “Sure. Okay. See you when you get here.” 

So, of course, he forgot. 

By the time she walked in, with her white printer in the cart and cloud of fear around her like an overworn mink coat, she rolled up into Electronics. Half bent over her cart, the printer box just a little taller than she was, she met Duo’s advance with dark narrowed eyes. 

“Hi,” he said. 

“It’s you,” she said. 

And in that moment of lack of sleep and a bent desperation to be liked, to avoid bullshit that both of them had probably been dodging for years, she knew he hadn’t done what he said and he couldn’t bear to let her down. 

“Let me show you that black printer.”

“You were supposed to set it aside for me.” 

Disappointment seems like such a small little pebble, but it can pull darkness in, like just pull on the nerves and draw in the rain. It’s cold and alone. It’s hunger and there he stood, staring at this bent little old woman upon whom the rain was about to fall, but not just this over an illogical printer, but who knew how much rain was weighing down the umbrella of hope over her head. He knew what he was running from. He knew how much it would hurt. So he said, “Oh sure! I have yours, but let me show you this one still on the shelf and make sure you like it. If you like it, then you can go return the printer you’ve got at customer service and I’ll have yours on the counter when you get back.”   
“Where did you put my printer?”

Not having thought his lie out and with a rising horror of actually having lied, he smiled, a little twitchy. “It’s in lockup, where we put the valuable things.” 

“Where?”

“Just over there. See this here nice printer? Do you like it?”

“Where’s my printer. I want to see it.” 

“Well, let me get Ashiro to bring it from the back.”

“Okay,” she said, her dark eyes turned almost predatory. 

Ashiro didn’t really respond well to Duo’s frantic pleas to please just go get a black HP printer from the back storage. It’s not like he didn’t have work of his own to do. 

So then there was a moment when Duo was hiding behind the shelves, waiting for the woman to leave, so he could bring her printer up.

She wasn’t leaving though. 

Then there was a manager. 

Taller than both Duo and the woman, the manager nodded, sighed, nodded. 

And Duo took a deep breath, “Okay, so I’ll come clean. I said I’d put it aside, but I got busy and didn’t get it done. I’m very sorry.” 

The woman though had some victory of her own at that point. Her lips, thin and pale, twisted upwards. “Don’t tell me. Tell him. He’s your manager.” 

“I’m sorry.” And he was. On many levels. 

“I don’t believe you,” she spewed acid. “You’re not busy. You can leave now.” 

The manager nodded kindly and Duo lost a couple of minutes. Then he was standing behind the counter, going through freight, putting stuff away. 

“Oh don’t take it so hard,” Tayla said. “It’s all over your face.” 

Then there were tears. Maybe like the disappointment, they were from many held over bruises, but there tears. 

A couple hours later Tayla was still like, “Don’t worry! You’re not going to get in trouble. If you were, they’d have been here by now.” 

More tears. 

Weak and small and the world was in a million fragments. He’d lied. 

Over nothing. 

Ashiro was more constructive in his comfort. “At least you know not to lie anymore. I know, you think you can just get away with it, but... Why are you crying?” 

Inside he was the God of Death, screaming that he’d kill them all for having seen him. Outside he was like, “That’ll be 39 dollars and 42 cents. Have a nice day!”

At lunch, Fatima gave him some of her rice and advised him about a lovely prayer in Arabic that would bring God’s help to him. It always worked. It was way to hard for him to say. 

After lunch, Ashiro told him that Malin as mad at him. That a friend was now mad at him brought him more tears. He was weak and stupid and unacceptable and he was going to get dismissed from Preventers and Heero was never going to talk to him again. 

Ashiro, “Well, just don’t lie anymore. It’s okay.” 

To which Duo, with an ashen face and wide violet eyes in a sea of red spat, “It WASN’T like I decided to lie! It’s like falling down the stairs. You can’t just decide to never fall down the stairs because you never choose to fall down the stairs in the first place.”

It was all stupid. Just quit and sit on the beach for a while till it all ends. Nothing will ever work. It’s better that way. 

Ashiro, “I’ll talk to Malin. It’ll be okay.” 

“Sure, okay,” Duo said, feeling like that was no more possible than ... well ... anything because nothing was actually possible. 

But not much later, Malin showed up in electronics, a big Pacific Islander woman with long hair and a mouth that always told it like it was. Her rough thumb across his cheek, wiping away tears and then her arms around him, lifting him nearly off his feet, so tight and so real, “Duo! I love you. No more tears. I’m not mad. It’s okay.” 

And he understood.

The printer woman had been more important than he was to him. The shitty co-workers at night were more important than he was to him. He was only important if Heero smiled at him and only for that moment and oh shit... this has been a flight of stairs he’d been falling down all his life. 

Because Malin said it, it was true. 

He was also important.   
He  
was  
also  
important. 

And everything changed.


	3. You did what with the margarine?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a silly crack fic that I had fun with. I hope you enjoy it :)

Terminal Velocity: Duo and the Spark: Crack Fic Outtake 1

By Max  
Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing   
Note: This is just silly crack

 

<><>  
Duo, who is hiding behind a stack of still boxed air mattresses, on the phone to Wufei, who is his primary contact on this mission, “Wu! Hey! So.. yeah, yeah, no, not fired yet, yeah, so there’s an active shooter in the store! Can I kill him?”

Wufei: *Terribly concerned* “He’s armed! I’ll call emergency services! Duo! You don’t even have a pistol. What are you going to kill him with?”

Duo: *hissing* “I’m in the fucking Walmart! It’s wall-to-wall deadly weapons.”

Wufei: “Apprehend, not assassinate.” 

After a pause: “Yeah, okay.” 

A little bit later...

Very armed officer: “Freeze! Hands up!” 

Duo: *back to the cop, rolls his eyes, holds his hands up and out, very slow. If there’s anything he’s good at, it’s getting arrested* 

Cop: “Slowly! Lay down on your face, arms out to the side.” 

Duo: “Can I say something first, please, sir?”

Cop: “What?” 

Duo: “He’s the shooter.” *points to guy on ground* “And I’d rather not... it’s uh, covered in margarine.”

Cop: “What?” 

Duo: “So. Uh. I work here. I stopped the shooter. He don’t work here no more.” 

A few minutes later: 

Cop to Duo who is sitting on the hood of a patrol car: “So let me get this straight.. you disarmed him and took him out of commission with a five-pound tub of margarine and a hoola hoop?”

Duo: *grins crookedly* “Ah didn’t kill his ass.” 

Cop: “Indeed. Why do you work at Walmart?”

Duo: *shrugs* “Long story, but mostly love and bullshit.”


	4. War with the Bean and Cheese

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A silly comic :)

Duo is attempting to have lunch. The lunch isn't having it. He can't get the package open... serious combat ensues...   
  
Duo is losing the battle.   
Wufei, his supervisor on this mission is like... box cutter... use the box cutter. 

Duo eats lunch, quietly.   
  
Wufei: "For ONCE."

 

 

 

 

 

 


	5. Black Ivy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be a fight scene.. I've struggled with it for a month or so. It came out very, very different.

Terminal Velocity: Duo and the Spark: Black Ivy

By Max  
Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing. I don’t own Doctor Who. I am not responsible for what Duo might do in a TARDIS.

 

Things can go down really fast sometimes. 

It was a Thursday.

Heero Yuy woke up in a hotel room in Rio de Janeiro. He lay on the midrange hotel bed, stared at the ceiling. It was just the same as the ceiling in D.C. and Los Angeles, and London. He was there to verify security on the new Preventer’s office. The city before had been some other very important thing. It was always some very important thing. His life suddenly seemed like he was falling down a hole of one important thing after another very important thing. Nothing had any flavor, any hunger. 

He sighed. It wasn’t fair. Love at first sight was incredibly stupid and it was even more stupid if the fucking idiot shot you the first time you met. That the idiot had then broken him out of the enemy’s grasp, without knowing him at all, that made this feeling all the more completely and utterly stupid. 

Heero sighed again, intentional, focused on pushing the air out of his lungs as if that would clear his mind. It was probably stupider to deny what he felt. He’d arranged to get Duo out of the thick of Preventers, nearly gotten him blackballed, sent on an utterly ridiculous mission because the fear of Duo getting injured was crippling. To get that, he’d promised Une things, that in that moment, he realized he could not produce. 

The argument that he’d made to Une was that Maxwell was erratic (That was true.), Maxwell was unpredictable (That was true.), Maxwell was infuriating (Also true.), and that Maxwell was diminishing the quality of his life and his work (This, as it turns out, wasn’t true. Then Une sent him away. Just like that, within hours, he was gone. 

His almost incessant chatter, the silly and pointless jokes, unending questions about the world, and all the stupid toys and play. Heero squeezed his eyes shut, willing there to be no tears so hard that he could feel a headache rising instead. 

His life had been laid out, as neatly as his starched slacks and shirt, measured nicely like his tailored tie. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. The memory of Duo’s voice and laughter flounced through his thoughts and a shiver of excitement went down his spine, over his belly, and hardened like impending fireworks. 

There are parts of the mind that are way less ordered than Heero’s military trained mind, much older, and occasionally much more powerful. Those parts imagined Duo’s lips, soft and some shade that Heero didn’t have a name for, but warm, and he could imagine those lips touching his and his whole body seemed to just not know how to hold still anymore. The rational part of his mind grabbed onto various and not completely related facts. Duo was a co-worker. Duo was probably not attracted to men. Duo was his friend. Duo had been through a lot of trauma in his life. 

With his hand he grabbed his cock and clenched his eyes shut. Duo had a great ass and it looked great in anything Heero had ever seen him in. Once there had been a party and Duo had clearly had gotten himself an alcoholic beverage that he was clearly not old enough to have, but it had resulted in him doing this line dance with other local men, and after a couple tries he was moving with them, with this swish to his hips, like those firm curves could somehow lift as he moved, and Heero forgot to breathe, his own hips lifting as some of the oldest parts of his mind clenched his whole body abandoned reason for the magic of passion. 

A couple of moments later, sweaty and calmer, he felt empty, but empty in a free way. He wiped the back of his hand over his nose and wondered why he needed to blow his nose. Connecting that with having been crying didn’t occur to him. He rolled over, picked up his phone, and with a sudden rush of joy he texted Duo. “I can arrange vacation time for you. Go away with me? Possible sexual interaction, if you’re interested.”

<><><>

 

'Blood in my mouth always makes me want to puke. It’s hella inconvenient.'

There were four of them, all standing in run down parking lot in front of a vacant store. Economic matters were way more than Duo had any mind to deal with. In that moment, as he tasted blood, staring up into the brown eyes of the man who’d hit him, he knew he’d never go back to Walmart. It just wasn’t for him. He was going to have to find some other path. 

The first step on that path felt like ivy curling up over his slowly beating heart, midnight ivy. 

Shakee glaring down at him smirked, confident in his position, his power. “Go on. Get out of here. I’ll deal with you tomorrow.”

“No.” Duo said, left hand fingers curled around the trucks of his board. He smiled, lips like razor blades. “Give me the cop and I might let you live.” 

“What fucking cop,” the bigger guy snarled, stepping back, eyes darting to the guy on his knees, jaw probably broken. “He’s a fucking cop? Nguyen is a fucking cop?”

The guy standing behind Nguyen, holding him up by a handful of dark hair, shrugged.   
Shakee drew in a slow breath, jaw tightening. “How the fuck you know he’s a cop?”

“Yer a fuckin’ idiot,” Duo snapped, already dodging the next punch. 

They switched places as Shakee lunged forward and Duo sidestepped as if it were the easiest thing in the world. “I know he’s a cop because I’m a fucking better cop than he’ll ever be.” 

“You’re just a fucking kid!”

That black ivy bloomed into a delicious, murderous hatred. “I am SO tired of hearing that! I’m going to put you in the ground! I’m fucking done with this! I’m tired of begging for permission to be!” As if it were punctuation, Duo flicked his right hand and a full sized gundanium bo staff extended to full length. 

The metal clink of it overlapped with a grinding sound that continued after, growing louder, like the world’s worst shifting in a car that was going to need a new transmission. Between them a big blue crate started to appear or not, as if it couldn’t quite get it in gear. If Duo hadn’t passed through that exact space not a moment before, he’d have guessed it was some kind of stealth shield failing. 

Running probably would have been a good idea. The wars were not even fully cleaned up after and there was always someone with some kind of new technology. 

Duo dropped his board, pressed his thumb to the black ring he wore, turning on some very dirty stealth technology of his own. 

Then the door of the crate burst open and a person strode out, slender, elegant in an alien way. A pale blue coat flashed like a cloak, hood falling back to reveal golden straw hair, hair that just couldn’t quite believe the world was this much hassle. Her head turned to look at Shakee, then a shudder when through her and she snapped around in Duo’s direction. 

He told himself she couldn’t see him. He’d been using this nasty little shealth shield since the war, had put a lot of effort into it. 

Her eyes were brown and they should have been common, but they were anything but. They narrowed and she pointed some kind of twisted magic wand at him. “There you are!” 

His mouth dropped open, upper lip twitching. As quietly as he could, he put one foot on his board and shoved backwards. 

“That will just not do!” Her magic wand lit up. The wheels on his board locked up. He fell over backwards, disrupting his shielding and dropping his bow, which then contracted back to wrap around his wrist. “That just won’t do at all!” 

Before he knew it, she had him by a solid handful of his hoodie. “Now you listen to me, young man! You’re going about this entirely wrong!”

“Let go,” he howled, sluring his words together. 

Having him firmly in her grasp, she kicked his board up and started towards the blue crate. “Come on then. I’ve got someone who’d like very much to speak with you about the path you’re on in life.” 

“Let go of me,” he howled, staggering and twisting as she dragged him towards the strange light coming out of her crate. It gave mobile doll a whole new meaning. “Fuck off!”

Shakee and his buddy were just holding their hands up like they weren’t going to interfere. It was all good with them. 

She made a motion like they should take off, but pointed at Nguyen. “You there. I think you should come on with us. It’s not really civilized here right now.” 

Nguyen, being older, possibly wiser, and certainly less teenaged sure of himself struggled to his feet and ran for the light coming from the box. Hands still tied behind his back, he made it in, and the echo of his exclamation, told Duo that there was more than he expected. 

The woman paused right before the door, still holding him firmly. “You are so much better than you’re being!”

He barely heard her though. It was bigger on the inside than out. It was like a salvage yard from heaven. Heero stood in front of the greatest pile of salvage Duo had ever seen. He couldn’t have daydreamed something more beautiful if he’d tried. 

Heero smiled. 

The black ivy wilted and turned to dust. 

Sirens screamed close. Duo walked into the light, out of the night. 

“Well, then, get it all out,” she said, pulling the door closed behind her. 

Duo stopped right in front of Heero, studying him, making sure he was real and not some nasty holographic trap. “Heero.” Duo said, pouring his loneliness and begging into that word. “Please.” 

Heero’s smile was small, tender, shy. “You should check your messages.” 

“Oh,” Duo said, confused, face twitching, ashamed then, like he’d failed. 

“Well, go on then,” the Doctor said, “I know. It’s bigger on the inside than on the outside.” 

Duo was looking at his phone. Heero was looking at Duo. “Yeah,” Duo said, glowing. “I’d like to fuck, but like... I’m alone without you.” 

“Then don’t be without me.” Heero reached out to touch a bit of fly away chestnut hair.

“Really boys,” the Doctor said. “Goodness.” 

Duo coughed, really looked at her for the first time. “Yeah. Bigger on the inside, but can it fly?”

“Yes, actually,” she said. The door’s popped open revealing clouds flowing around them. 

“Hot shit!” Duo said, grabbing Heero’s hand and half dragging him to the open doors. “Heero look!”

Heero was still looking at Duo. “Beautiful.” 

“Still not human,” the Doctor said, but not even the TARDIS was completely listening.


	6. Vacation...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duo, Wufei, and Heero are taken for a vacation :)

Duo and the Spark 6  
by Duointherain

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing. 

Notes: So I should maybe work harder at making a consistent narrative and story structure. I’m having a lot of personal growth in my life right now and this is the hardest time of year for me. So tonight, I’m just going to write what I imagine. I hope a couple of readers will find it meaningful with me. I do hope I’m able to write it so it’s enjoyable, at least for me, hopefully for you. 

Extra notes: So! The last time I touched this file was December.. so it’s been four months. Dear god... but it’s going to take a jump..... this is mostly therapy for me, but I am happy to share with you, for those of you that might find meaning in it with me. 

 

It’s almost 7000 miles between Rio and the Seattle Metro. If anyone could get across that distance in record time it was Heero Yuy gone rogue. 

<><><>

Duo nearly tripped as he walked into the light. Some snarky voice at the back of his thoughts was snipping about how it’s always bad to go into the light. The floor tipped though, in a way that floors aren’t prone to doing, unless one is super stoned or dealing with a head injury, in which case the nice comfy chair he found himself landing in was quite a surprise. 

For just a moment, he saw out the open doors into the dark parking lot where he’d been solidly ready to murder a man. Those doors snapped shut, leaving him a brightly lit space filled with blue and molten lava and spinning. The chair spun around, presenting him a small round table with a tea set and a blonde woman in yellow suspenders and a rainbow. “Well then, drink up!” She smiled. 

Duo’s lips went tight, twitched. “Uh,” he said, the back of his head threatening a headache. “Uh...” 

“Well, then,” she said, sipping from her teacup, saucer in her other hand, “I just really though you could use a cuppa!” She set the saucer down, pointed to a couple slices of cake and some odd looking gummy bears, “Go on then! There’s jelly babies and some cake. It’s an Amerian cake, so you can feel at home!” Her smile was bright then brown eyes just full of kindness and warmth. 

Both hands on the arms of the chair, Duo pushed back against it. “Who the hell are you?”

 

“Oh yes,” she said, setting her tea down and drying her hand on her trousers before reaching a hand out to him. “I’m The Doctor!”

Duo’s nose wrinkled and he was very much a fucked up teenager who almost committed murder. “I ain’t sick,” Duo said, feet trying to reach the ground, to push the chair back. He knew there had been doors behind him. Doors sounded very good.

“Yes, well,” the Doctor said, plucking up a jelly baby, which she then pointed at Duo before popping it in her mouth. “I am not sure that’s true. Come now, were you not just about to murder a man?”

Duo leaned forward to see why he couldn’t reach the floor, only to find like the vastness of the universe just under the front of his chair. He leaned back very quickly and tucked his feet up under his legs. “He kinda had it coming. Bastard.” 

“You’re very angry! I understand!” Both hands being very expressive, she leaned forward, eyeing him intensely, “I just want you to know that you’re very important to how the history of humanity plays out and well, it would be terrible loss should you go down the path of murder.” 

Duo scratched behind his ear, then the top of his head, itches slipping around like lice made of pure guilt. “Ya wrong. I ain’t nothing. Ah already killed bunches of fuckers. I’m the god of death.” 

She chewed her jelly baby as he spoke, nodding approapriately. “I have actually been to meet the God of Death. Rather a nasty fellow. I assure you that you are not him. Tell me just exactly what this fellow did to deserve to die? I’m sure he was awful!” 

“He is!” Duo scowled, eyed the void under his chair, then reached for a piece of cake, not caring one whit where all the crumbs went. They could fall away into some alien sun for all he cared. “He he’d be happy if I killed myself... I mean, I was talking to someone else about how I was crashing really badly and thinking about it and he said that’s how people ascend. I said that was dangerous and mean to say! What if I didn’t come back the next day and he said he’d be happy for me!” 

“Oh my,” she said, nodding, scowling, “He is very vile! What else?”

“He said that because of gays like me that god can’t be real!” 

“Well, that’s just cruel!” 

“He said because of gays that pedophiles are going to be like.. accepted! I told him that I got hurt like that as a kid and pedophiles will never be okay! He went back to it over and over and over again! That people like me are why!”

“That’s completely wrong!” The Doctor poured Duo a cup of tea. “There’s nothing wrong with being gay! Bisexual, transexual, it’s all perfectly fine. There are people who have a compulsion to murder and while they might be fine people, we must help them not hurt other people. I promise you, what he was saying never comes to pass.” 

“How do you know,” Duo said, trying not to look into the void as he reached for the tea. “Does this have sugar? Wufei doesn’t do sugar.” 

“Yes, yes, of course,” she said, putting a spoonful of sugar in his tea. “And I know because I’m the Doctor! This is my TARDIS. It’s a time machine!” She smiled every bit as brightly as he could. 

He sipped his tea, staring over the rim at her. “Are you crazy?”

She leaned back, sipped her tea. “Quite probably, but I am very old. I just comes with time.” 

“If you a time traveler, why ya bothering with me?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out!” She set her tea down, clapped her hands. “Now! That vile man is wrong! It is very good for the universe that you are alive and while his cruelty is very vivid, it will never outlast love and kindness!”

“I tried really hard to be nice to him,” Duo said, fighting back tears. “He lies! He lies about everything! It’s not just me he’s hurting!” 

“Killing him does not undo his cruelty. Only love and kindness, not necessarily to him, but to others, that can undo his harm.”

“But what if I’m not strong enough? What if everything I am just falls away and I’m ... nothing anymore. What if I go away? Like I did in the war? Sometimes, you know?”

“I understand,” she said, scooting her chair closer so she could take his hand. “You’re not alone, Duo Maxwell. Your kindness and goodness have won you good friends.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Duo said, tears slipping down his cheeks. “I’m a big failure at everything.” 

“You’re a bit depressed and there’s been a lot of stress!” She patted his hand kindly. “I think we should go on a vacation. I know you just met me, but let’s bring your friends too.” 

“What friends,” Duo whispered. 

She stood up, spun his chair around, just in time for Heero and Wufei to fall into the TARDIS as the doors opened without warning. A crowbar hit the floor and spun forward to come to a stop at Duo’s chair. Both Wufei and Heero scrambled to get to their feet. “See? Those friends! They’d do anything for you!” She leaned closer and whispered, “There’s a solid chance that one of them really likes you!”

Duo shivered, blushing as he and Heero locked eyes. 

Wufei made it to his feet first, pointing an accusatory finger at the Doctor, “Woman! What are you doing?”

Fingers laced together, arms resting on the back of Duo’s chair, the Doctor smirked, “Whatever I want, for the most part!” 

The doors closed behind them. The TARDIS activated, with its very distinctive whirl. 

“Let’s go on a trip! A vacation! It’ll be fun!” 

Heero glared, patented-Heero-death-glare! “UNIT said you were benevolent.”

Standing at the console, changing settings, the Doctor cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t vacation very often do you, Officer Yuy? Don’t worry! I’ll have you back the moment we left!”


End file.
